If you happen to live near Newcastle, I’ll be giving the “Grandville and the Anthropomorphic Tradition” presentation I did at BICS and the ICA at the Literary and Philosophical Society Wednesday 3rd February, 6.00pm. 23 Westgate Road, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 1SE Free to members, £2 for non-members. You can reserve a seat by calling (0191) 232 0192, emailing library@litandphil.org.uk or by calling in. If you reserve a ticket and are subsequently unable to attend, please let them know as they often have a waiting list.

For any of you who can receive the Discovery Channel, I’ll be appearing in an episode of “A Brush With Britain”. The series is about artist Charles Evans travelling around the country, painting scene from each place and meeting artists associated to the area. I’m in the one about Sunderland. The first showing is Sat Feb 6th at 8.30 pm on Discovery Real Time One hour later it will be repeated on the catch up channel "Real Time+", then at 12.30am again on Real Time and an hour later again on "RealTime+".

Independent press organisation P.R.E.S.S. teams up with the Tyneside to deliver an exciting 24 hour event!

We’ll be testing you to your limits with this special challenge; to create a comic book in 24 hours. The story, the artwork, and the lettering will all be completed in the time allowed. No previous experience is necessary, only enthusiasm and ideas. Comic artists and graphic designers will be on hand to assist, and dinner and breakfast is included – and lots of coffee too! But if you just fancy a taster, there will be drop-in mobile phone drawing workshops, 24 min workshops, and
Drink and Draw sessions all across Saturday.
A round the clock creative event, not to be missed!

Entry: £15 for the 24hr event. Places are limited, and advance booking essential.

This Month sees the release of a new Bi-Monthly Print comic by Tommie Kelly. Called ROAD CREW: FOR SALE, its storyline deals with all the good things in life: death, success, magick, rock star ambitions, family relations and love. Read the prologue at http://roadcrewcomic.com/forsale/; buy the comic at indyplanet.com.

We now have our own monthly show on Resonance FM, the first Alternative Press Hour features music by small pressers such as Shug, Paul O'Connell and an interview with Edd Baldry organiser of the London Zine Symposium and part of the Last Hours collective and an interview with Mike Lake who was a founding member of Forbidden Planet and Titan Distribution. He talks to us about the very early days of comics in the UK.

The show will go out on Friday the 15th January at 9pm, and will be (hopefully) archiving it with a link on the alternative press website

Secondly the Alternative Press Fair will happen again on the 13th February with, as usual, as many creators of comics, zines, bookarts, poetry etc as its physicaly possible to squeeze into St Aloysius Social Club! There will be a big party afterwards to celebrate our 1 year aniversary with music, open mic and djs, details as always on the alternative press website